Basic Sigil Magic - Phillip Cooper 2001
Orange Magick
The Psybernomicon
The nature of orange power is communication and the mind. It also governs nervous problems (for example, stress, worry, anxiety, and so forth), improving the mind, speech and the ability to communicate, mind power, important agreements (loans and credit), lung complaints, dealing with neighbors and relatives, speech difficulties, concentration, decision making, local travel and charlatanism and trickery.
Orange power is Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Orange power rules communication. In other words, the way you speak and think. It is the power of the conscious mind. Correctly controlled emotions are essential if desire power is to work. Orange power helps you to use your mind as a tool for achievement. To sublimate the instinct is one of the keys to orange power. Right away, forget about intellectual brain-feeding or the accumulation of unnecessary facts and figures. Such ideas have no place in the reality of magick. You do not have to be clever or hold a degree in philosophy or astrophysics to be an effective magician or a balanced human being.
Unfortunately, society, which is often wrong, holds up intelligence as the criterion for growth. If true intelligence were implied, this would be alright. But this is not the case. When we pass an examination, we are deemed to be higher than others who have not. But what is an examination and what has happened when we pass? All we have done is memorize a variety of so-called facts and show that we have retained them.
The question is have we really learned anything of value and can we apply this knowledge? The blind acceptance of so-called facts is bad enough. For this to be the platform on which society is supported, and the way in which children are educated is unreal. Very few provisions are made for individuality of expression and learning needs. The mass-mind paradigm increasingly forces its unreality on people. Would-be magicians are perhaps more prone to conditioning than most. So often, they accept without question and subscribe to unfounded patterns of belief. This book acts as a magick mirror, wherein the pure see purity, the evil see evil, and the frivolous see whimsy, because it exposes both magical fraud and the false values of corrupt societies.
Naturally, there has to be some framework for learning, but this should be in keeping with the nature of orange power. There ought to be flexibility and encouragement to explore. The truth is simple, and so is the way to power. In the words of a great man: "When Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God'" (Mark 10:14). He also told us: "Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10:15). The truth is simple to a child, before society forces us into a mold. For adults, the truth is often difficult to perceive, owing to the belief that life is complex.
The conscious mind is a tool. In the right hands, it is a tool for learning and applying that knowledge for advancement. It can be a source of trouble, nervous complaints, and utter confusion if it is rigidly educated to the wrong standard, because it is then at variance with the self. When used to plan, compare, examine, and make decisions around the needs of the self, it is functioning correctly, as a tool instead of an encumbrance. The ability to think and then direct the subconscious mind is magical. The need to indulge in book learning is largely self-defeating, unless a person has no other aims in life.
There is nothing wrong with knowledge if it can be applied or it satisfies a need. It is the ability to think in simple terms, however, that gets results, and that is what matters. It is essential to control the mind by seeking peace and then directing it into the appropriate channels. In other words, a mind full of confusion, darting about from one fact to another, will not produce concrete results or influence the subconscious mind beneficially. A quiet, orderly mind concentrating on an objective will enable you to plan out your campaign of action and help you sort out the wheat from the chaff, in magical terms. As you think, so you are. Quiet, calm, contemplative thinking gets results.
The mind is a magical tool. With magick, you are dealing with the science of using the mind. Magick involves a process of training and self-discipline, but the training must be done in stages, slowly and carefully, with a single-minded determination to succeed. You will be using parts of your mind that you did not know existed. Those parts are out of condition, stiff, and unyielding. They must be coaxed gently back to life, gradually brought to peak fitness. Many people leap into magical work with no thought at all of their mental fitness. They attempt to control the power of their minds before they have learned to control their mind themselves. They unleash a maelstrom of power over which they have absolutely no control. That power, once unleashed, knows no bounds.
Once you have learned to control the power patterns of your subconscious, many of the preliminaries of magick will become second nature. In temple work, neophytes must go meticulously through a set procedure of cleansing the temple, establishing contact with their inner selves, quarters or gateways, links with planets, god-form symbols, or whatever they may happen to be using. The adept can cover this entire procedure with very little preparation—perhaps just a single word or gesture. When you can do magick on a bus in rush-hour traffic then you will be making progress. (This is what my teacher told me.) A magician of many years training and control can dispense with the outward tools of magick, for they have learned to control the many levels of the mind.
Orange power is associated with speed and movement. It has a particular affinity with the mind, with quick thinking, alertness, wit, and the wit-self. Orange power is also a healer, but, in this case, through the use of surgery and medicine. In Mercurial terms, it is not by accident that the emblem of the medical profession is the caduceus of Hermes (the Greek equivalent of Mercury). Hermes, as mentioned previously, has also given his name to a particular branch of magick that deals with ceremonial and mental paradigms (the Hermetic arts) and relates to the inhibitory mode of gnosis. These largely appeal to those who use thinking as their prime motivation in magical work.
Although the orange power relates only in part to magical operations, full achievement is granted by the understanding and use of white power—the magician-self.